Everyone who knows Devon in details, especially, Dartmoor area: I need your help!

Anna Ignatenko

Hello everybody!) 

I'd like to find a possible prototype of the Pixie's Cave ("The Sittaford Mystery")

    ="You're right, Miss, and there is a hiding place there, the Pixie's Cave they call it. As narrow an opening between two rocks as you could find, but it widens out inside. They say one of King Charles's men hid there once for a fortnight with a serving maid from a farm bringing him food."=

 Do you know any similar caves which are situated nearby Okehampton or Princetown?
Thank you in advance!))

Griselda

Dear Anna,

Go to www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk

The cave was on Dartmoor, south of Sheepstor.

Tor means hill; a moor is a flat expanse of brackeny and rough grassy ground, usually with rock beneath the surface

The cave was known as piskie's Cave, Piskie's Hole, Piskie's Grott and Elford's Cave. Of course, words like grott (grotto) are old fashioned words for a cave. The cave was written about in the 18th Century, most notably by the Rev Polwele, in his 1797 work, The Histories of Devonshire. Mrs Bray also wrote an account of a visit to find the cave. AC would have been delighted by such stories as a child, and, remember, the countryside was a major topic of interest to middle class families throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. As AC says, superstition and folklore existed among rural communities well into the 20th century. It is fitting that she should reference pixies in the work The Sittaford Mysteries which has a seance in the story. You could research the interest in the supernatural at the beginning of the 20th century. This interest was partly fuelled by travel to the near and far east, and the stories which were brought back. AC references the supernatural in other works, and these references serve to add to the mystery of the novels. Perhaps AC is subcon

Anna Ignatenko

Griselda said:

Dear Anna,

Go to www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk

The cave was on Dartmoor, south of Sheepstor.

Tor means hill; a moor is a flat expanse of brackeny and rough grassy ground, usually with rock beneath the surface...

Dear Griselda,
Thank you a lot again!)
I was considering this cave too, but according to google map I decided that it was a bit far from Okehampton or Princetown (according to novel's plot a man who escaped from Princetown prison was hiding for few days in the cave - he was on his way to Exhampton (Okehampton) where his relatives were waiting for him, that's why I had some doubts).. What is your opinion about it?  Anyway, thank you!

Griselda

I am sure that it would be this cave, but AC has simply changed a few details, as she has freedom to do, since The Sittaford Mystery is, of course, a work of fiction. I imagine that caves such as this would be well known to local people but not to outsiders. In the mystery by AC, Evil Under the Sun, there is a cave which is significant to the plot,  which one character, Patrick, knows about because he holidayed in the area as a child. It fits, I think that AC would know about caves and rocks in Devon, and, as a child, would have liked the thought of them being secret. A person with a stupendous imagination - like AC - would be particularly impressed by the idea of a secret discovery, such as a hidden passage. We know from her forewards to books that she enjoyed her childhood. She writes fondly about memories of Christmas when she was a child. I know that you are writing about the significance of locations, and I think that it fits the novel that secrets and the supernatural are introduced as sub-themes.